Raters of Georgia's (USA) state-mandated college-level writing exam, which is intended to ensure a minimal university-level writing competency, are trained to grade holistically when assessing these exams. A guiding principle in holistic grading is to not focus exclusively on any one aspect of writing but rather to give equal weight to style,…

Personal narratives are integral to autobiographical memory and to identity, with coherent personal narratives being linked to positive developmental outcomes across the lifespan. In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical literature that sets the stage for a new lifespan model of personal narrative coherence. This new model…

A newly signed law in Georgia that gives the governor the power to remove school board members in a district that does not have full accreditation is bringing fresh scrutiny to the role of AdvancED, a private agency that accredits schools in that state and 48 others. The target of the new law, signed by Gov. Nathan Deal, is the 48,000-student…

A "student scholars" program was developed to engage undergraduates at a large, public, land-grant research university with its public service and outreach mission, through cohort meetings, supervised internships, and site visits. Qualitative and pre-/post-participation quantitative data from the first cohort of 10 students show that…

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, a significant amount of funding has been targeted to improve state and local education systems. The Race to the Top Fund in particular is providing $4.35 billion in competitive grants for states. The U.S. Department of Education designated two phases for the Race to the Top grant…

Today there are over 1,500 public-use airports in the United States. Each of these airports provides a service to the surrounding community, whether in the form of a general aviation or commercial air service facility. An airport is dependent on many facets of the local government infrastructure for support services. Also, the airports have ties…

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Among those incarcerated are juveniles. However, the higher the education obtained, the less likely it is that those previously incarcerated will reoffend. Legislation such as No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act set the structure…

As the 21st century's first decade draws to a close, America's public school students are participating in online academic classes in increasingly large numbers. More than one million K-12 public school students took online courses in the 2007-2008 school year, according to an estimate in a recent Sloan Consortium survey. This represents a 47…

Since 2001-2002, standards-based accountability (SBA) provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) have shaped the work of public school teachers and administrators in the United States. NCLB requires each state to develop content and achievement standards in several subjects, administer tests to measure students' progress toward…

Educational researchers and practitioners have paid considerable attention to the use of multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) in recent years in order to support learning across curricula. Among MUVEs, Second Life (SL) is one of the most popular environments, with over 18 million account-registered users as of May 2008. This paper reports a…

Background: In 2002, Georgia had the United States' eighth highest number of persons living with AIDS. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission as a result of sexual abuse is uncommon but definitely occurs. In certain circumstances of sexual abuse, antiretroviral post-exposure prophylaxis (ARV-PEP) has been suggested as a means to decrease…

Early childhood education has received an increasing amount of attention in the last two decades in the United States and in other countries. There is now a strong consensus on the many benefits of preschool. Studies have shown that attending a high-quality preschool program not only increases children's readiness for kindergarten, but also causes…

Living in an age of communication, literacy is an extremely integral part of our society. We are impacted by literature during our infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. "Literacy for the New Millennium" includes information from specialists in the field who discuss the influence of popular culture, media, and technology on…

This document contains 14 research paper presentations and 5 "mini-tips" from the 1998 American Vocational Education Research Association (AVERA) annual meeting. The first section includes three papers on international and distance education: "Determining Success of Vocational Students Enrolled in Distance Education Courses"…